Pixley, Jocelyn 1947–

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Pixley, Jocelyn 1947–

PERSONAL: Born 1947. Education: University of Sydney, B.A., 1969, Sydney Teachers College, Dip. Ed., 1970; University of New South Wales, Ph.D. (first-class honors), 1988.

ADDRESSES: Office—School of Sociology, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER: Sociologist, educator, and writer. University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, senior lecturer in sociology and school postgraduate coordinator. Member of advisory panel, Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, 2002–.

WRITINGS:

Citizenship and Employment: Investigating Post-Industrial Options, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Michael Bittman) The Double Life of the Family: Myth, Hope, and Experience, Allen & Unwin (St. Leonards, New South Wales, Australia), 1997.

Emotions in Finance: Distrust and Uncertainty in Global Markets, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Society, State and Politics in Australia, edited by Michael Muetzelfeldt, Pluto Press (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1992; The Australian Welfare State, edited by John Wilson and others, Macmillan Education (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1996; European Citizenship and Social Exclusion, edited by Maurice Roche and R. van Berkel, Ashgate, 1997; Australian Way: States, Markets, and Civil Society, edited by Bettina Cass and Paul Smyth, Cambridge University Press (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1998; Facing Australian Families, 3rd edition, edited by W. Weeks and M. Quinn, Addison Wesley Longman (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000; Rethinking Australian Citizenship, edited by Wayne Hudson and John Kane, Cambridge University Press (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000; The Politics of Australian Society: Political Issues for the New Century, edited by P. Boreham, G. Stokes, and R. Hall, Longman/Pearson Education (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000; Management and Organization Paradoxes, edited by Stewart Clegg, John Benjamins (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2002; and Australian Social Attitudes: The First Report, edited by D. Denemark, and others, UNSW Press (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 2005. Contributor to journals, including Australian Financial Review, British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Review, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, and American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Member of editorial board, Sociological Perspectives, Journal of the Pacific Sociological Association, 1996–2000, and Journal of Sociology, 2002–05.

SIDELIGHTS: Jocelyn Pixley is an Australian sociologist whose primary interest is economic sociology, including the theoretical and substantive research on money and global finance, emotions and organizations, and social policy and economic citizenship. In her book Citizenship and Employment: Investigating Post-Industrial Options Pixley deals with the phenomenon of mass unemployment that began in the 1990s and its effect on citizenship and democratic societies. She discusses the "post-industrialist" viewpoint that the unemployment trends are irreversible and lays out her reasoning for why she believes they are wrong. Writing in the American Political Science Review, Carole Pateman noted, "One of Pixley's main criticisms of the post-industrialists is that they neglect the role of the state. Their policies can be, and invariably are, turned in other directions by state intervention that is required to implement them." Pateman added that the author "makes some telling points against the post-industrialists."

In The Double Life of the Family: Myth, Hope, and Experience Pixley turns her attention to society's expected view of the normal family life and what it entails versus the reality. "The central objective of the book is to demonstrate that families lead a double life," wrote Sotirios Sarantakos in the Journal of Intercultural Studies. In the book's nine chapters, Pixley discusses topics such as the myth of the nuclear family, the high likelihood of domestic violence in the home, actual life in the home and the division of household duties, the reality of inequalities in the home, and the relationship between the family and the state. Sarantakos called the effort "a well written, well argued and … very informative book, which is also accessible to the uninitiated in the jargon of social sciences; most of all, it is a valuable addition to the family literature."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, December, 1993, Carole Pateman, review of Citizenship and Employment: Investigating Post-Industrial Options, p. 1046.

Journal of Intercultural Studies, October, 1998, Sotirios Sarantakos, review of The Double Life of the Family: Myth, Hope, and Experience, p. 230.